Never Alone
by damnation soldier
Summary: "Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth." A collection of drabbles for the Beware the Batman universe. Eventual Batana. Slow burn.
1. Devotion

**A/N**: I have a compelling need to write for this series. So I did. I am saddened by the fact that we only have one season of the show, as spectacular as it was. The characterizations were terrific, the plot and transition arcs were smooth, and I'm fond of the mellow tone of the script. In retrospect, I wanted more, much, much more. I wanted to see more of their partnership, more beautifully choreographed fight scenes, but I cannot. Fortunately, for a short lived program, it did happen to wrap itself up quite nicely with a solid finale. And Anthony Ruivivar, thank you for lending your absolutely perfect voice to Bruce Wayne/Batman. You've made your own legacy in my book. Cartoon Network, again, you've taken away my happiness by cancelling this gem amongst others. Regarding my work, this piece of ongoing oneshots will have varying genres. Some are lighter than the rest, some are darker. I'll try to be as realistic and consistent as possible with the portrayal of each character. Please do leave a review on your way out. Thanks.

**Summary**: A collection of drabbles for the Beware the Batman universe. Eventual Batana. Slow burn.

**Prompt description**: After some nervous fumbling about, Tatsu wants an explanation. Set after 1x07 'Family'.

* * *

Devotion

* * *

She could be a little less obvious about it.

But then again subtlety was never her strong suit. She's slept it off for a night, and then some if that nap in the limo while waiting outside Wayne Tech counted. It's still disconcerting and unbelievable.

The revelation that her employer, marshmallow conglomerate philanthropist Wayne slash debauchery of a mess if the tabloids weren't exaggerating was the goddamn Batman_._ She'll repeat. The Batman.

The Batman who raised hell for all injustice on behalf of Gotham. The Batman who wears five layers of kevlar, has a system of secret tunnels and a ludicrous cave below this estate wide of a mansion, who goes toe to toe with the worst the city's criminal sub element has to offer every night and throws their sorry asses onto Blackgate and Arkham.

If Tatsu was ever fond of American expressions, this would be the time to revel how fitting it was to use 'a slice of humble pie', referring to Wayne's case of double identity that made her brain hurt. She was oblivious. He was right in front of her.

She had snapped at him about morality and obligation, at wits end when Burr's attack happened, and even then he'd came to their rescue, yes, the fact that the safehouse for the Ion Cortex inventor was his place was convenient. She'd blatantly berated both the man's lifestyle and his alter ego, none of which she deciphered were one and the same person, in his own home when she first came. She'd mocked him. She called him a nut. A lunatic.

He'd probably had cameras installed in the kitchen and eavesdropped on her offense from the monitor banks. She's a little ashamed of how bad she's treated him, how distasteful of a light she's seen him in. She'll most certainly try to improve their relationship given her minimal effort of actually being nice to him apart from fake ruses and smiles to find underground libraries which she now detects might be part of his tests. Of course, she'll try. She'll turn it around.

The badmouthing behind his back, which probably isn't unknown to him come to think of it, her initial low thoughts of her state of employment. Bodyguard driver to billionaire city boy. In Gotham no less. In Gotham you were either poor or a pig. And since Wayne was filthy rich, titled Gotham's favorite son of all things she thought it had been a joke.

Not to mention the pay had been ridiculous, bordering on insulting for her to receive. A stab at her dignity. She was trained for far better things. She's ex-CIA, ex-League of Assassins for crying out loud. She's not even sure she's protecting someone who deserved it. Whereas in reality, it was anything but. He didn't live a cushy lifestyle. He was far from uppity, it's all for appearances sake. This man, this finely bred Bruce Wayne, he was not at all what he seems to be. He was a survivor, like her or even more, he was a man who's experienced his fair share of pain, of life at its most deformed cracks. He's dealt with it all.

She was walking away, spiteful and hardened before she turned around to see his face unmasked. She's aware she gasped, mouth parted, eyes wide and head spinning when he'd revealed himself. _Bruce Wayne isn't dead. I'm just fine. I regret what happened to Bethany regardless of her intentions. As for the soultaker sword, we're going to get it back. Together._

She's thought about it all night. It's not easy to come by and accept this sudden dose of humility and amazement. And she's honestly apologetic in her heart, no need to show it though, because she couldn't have been more wrong about her prejudices regarding her boss.

Bruce is sitting across from her in the pantry. Meals, dinners especially were awkward affairs between the two of them. Even if Alfred was around it it still is, and it's worse when he isn't. Tonight it's one of those nights. The butler and moreover her godfather, damn her if she ever forget, had errands to run, apart from which included restocking on bovine glands. She's still confused.

The spoon makes a loud, clumsy noise when she drops it onto the table.

"Is something wrong?" He asks, calm as always, eyebrow raised just slightly.

He knows they've spent the better part of the day in uncomfortable silence if that journey from this afternoon where she never once looked at him and had avoided the rear view mirror from the driver's seat was anything to go by. In fact, this is the first legit conversation they had today apart from the one sided ones of him giving pointers on which address and time they need to pay attention to for his business appointments and of her merely taking mental notes to remember his schedule.

She stares at him incredulously. "What I don't understand is.. _Why?"_

She needed to know where it came from. His fire.

He picks up on the context right away, master detective indeed, and she's glad. She sees the flicker of hesitation, of doubt and buried hurt beneath his gray eyes, which she soon gathers are never empty, never void of emotion. There's always something in his mind, bothering him, haunting him, hiding in the shadows of his irises.

Bruce knows better than to not tell her. Because Alfred said it himself, she's a new addition to their family, and he agrees more than he disagrees to the statement. Despite his privacy, it was better to be open about his past. Tatsu wasn't so full of questions but logically this was a curiosity that needed to be indulged. She deserved it, as she's going to be part of his crusade some time later.

And more importantly, he trusts her. He trusts her with his life. He's come to acknowledge that when he halfheartedly reinspected the footage from the Argus Club building for tracking purposes, which sadly didn't turn up good leads, only weak ones he'll later investigate. He knows he's won her over, and that she'll fight for him, by his side. He watched her, angry and raging, and alive after he fell through the window, sword in hand and she leaps through the air, blade aimed to slice, a battle cry escaping her lips as she jumped. She's brave, and young, and strong. _They won't stop me. Nothing will._

Those are the truest words he will ever hear.

It's only fair if he doesn't lie to her. The truth, and nothing more is what they share.

"I had a rough start in life," he begins. He doesn't beat around the bush. "I was orphaned at a young age. As a result, I was never happy, at least not in the way I suspect people are. I find myself restless and empty. I made a promise on the grave of my parents that I would rid this city of the evil that took their lives. I should have known when I chose to walk this path. It never ends."

She registers just how profoundly little did she really know about him. She plans to change that.

"Do you want it to end?" She asks.

He shakes his head. "It's not a matter of want. Some part of me knows it shouldn't. Couldn't. The city needs a vigilante. Whether it knows it or not. Another part of me knows being Batman, it―" He struggles to find the right way to say it before landing on something he deems appropriate, "It isn't _safe."_

He doesn't dwell on that and remains distant. Tatsu mostly assumes it's the physical dangers, but given time he knows she'll understand it's more than that. Being Batman means subjecting himself to certain risks, it unravels his soul, his sanity, it's a cowl within darkness that swallows him, a mask that stays on too long that it becomes him. It's not an exodus or anything that it's instantaneously recognizable. But he knows. He knows he's fading. Little by little. He's not enough. He's losing control.

He admits, firm and resolute, "What I do believe in, however, is that I can't give it up."

It's a coping mechanism of some sorts. Or at least it used to be. The persona was supposed to be an emotional crutch for his survivor's guilt, to rid him of his fears, to restore his honor, to make him more than just a man, to make him whole. But lately, it was becoming a demon, having a mind of its own. He yielded to his monsters, his surrender unconditional. His only salvation had become his paved road to destruction. Talk about irony.

Tatsu sees through him. She saw the toll such a role took on him. Something new shone in her eyes as she glanced at him. Respect, admiration. It's growing within her. It was different than the condescending gaze she gave him just yesterday morning, or the angry glare when he'd pretended to have dismissed both her and Alfred's services last night.

She'd definitely reevaluated her opinion of him, and altered the terms of her allegiance. This is no longer a job. A job implied that it wasn't in her desire to do it, only formalities, strictly a way to earn and make a living. Now that she knew he existed, his ambition existed, it made all the difference. She is inspired.

She wants this. She needs this. She's here to stay. And not just to get the sword back from Shiva. She's in this for the long run. His tireless efforts were beyond noble. It's decided. Bruce Wayne is an ordinary man with an extraordinary determination. Bruce Wayne was someone worth her devotion.

Her pride is gone and she finds herself speaking before she knows it. "I want to help you."

Bruce nods, sincere. "Thank you, Tatsu."

It isn't until they've both finished, just as she's taking care of the dishes to pardon Alfred for the evening, and he's left for his study, she realizes it.

That's the first time he's ever called her by her name.


	2. Perfection

**A/N**: My residual obsession with this show is bordering on pathetic since I actually made an 8tracks fanmix. That's right. I did. Pretty hilarious if you ask me. My writing style I've come to realize is not dialogue dominant. It's mostly narrative and then a couple of lines show up. It's always been like that. I only make exceptions in very few cases. I hope it doesn't bother you. I know some readers prefer to have quick pacing and action, but the thing is I want to stick to a thick buildup process of impressionable thoughts because like the timid yet heavy flow of this series, it has proven to be deeper in effect, and that is the result I'm aiming for. And this one, forgive me, turned out to not have any dialogue at all. Because it's an introspective look I wanted to do at Tatsu's past, and I'm hoping it doesn't flop. Behold, my exploration.

**Summary**: A collection of drabbles for the Beware the Batman universe. Eventual Batana. Slow burn.

**Prompt description**: In the end, what Tatsu makes of Jason Burr isn't entirely terrible and she understands she's exactly where she belongs with the masked vigilante. Flashback chapter.

* * *

Perfection

* * *

In her gloriously eventful twenty-seven years on earth, Tatsu believes she is experienced with men. Very experienced. With confidence she can claim and prove that through something as grandeur as writing her own memoirs if she so wishes. She's dealt with all sorts of masculine forms of temperaments, parent complex, rivalry issues, nasty habits, poor hygiene, somewhat efficient piss-off tactics, bullheaded egos, rude mannerisms from all around the world, from all cultures.

This included men from different workplace. Men in the office, men in military, men in a legion of assassins even. They were different in their own ways. Their values, their beliefs, their sense of bravery, honor, family, everything they hold close to their heart was as stark as night and day in comparison to one another.

With that being said, Tatsu is not at all experienced with goofy scientists who seem to have no regards to personal space or gender stereotypes or the fact that he basically roped her into a relationship because they share the same boss. She is befuddled on how to treat a twenty-eight year old bonafide genius from Wayne Tech's R&D who is deep down a boy in a man's body. A boy whose heart was still pure, untouched, completely and utterly mesmerized by science, energy conservation, and most importantly _her._ She still doesn't get where did the last part came from. How it happened was abrupt and unexpected. She supposed he did feel an outrageous amount of gratitude for her act in helping save his life and making sure he was still breathing while seeking refuge in the manor. She's nothing special though. But ever since she's played his knight in shining armor, Jason is looking at her like she hung the moon in the sky.

It's not retarded and he's not looking at her like he's mentally undressing her, which is usually the kind of reaction or interest she expects from men if they ever gave her any. He's sweet. Eyes bright and all smiles, as if the fact that he's voluntarily the target of a powerful Arabian clan of assassins was so yesterday. He genuinely believes she's there lending muscle and unpacking boxes into his new place at the office apartments (he's moving for better protection and access to the lab as his house is in the suburbs and this is closer to downtown) not because a threat was made on his life, and is still in progress, not because she's inclined to obey _both_ the instructions of Bruce Wayne and Batman, but because they're actually connecting. Which they kind of are. Even if Tatsu isn't willing to admit it. Yet she knows, yes, this is a betrayal to her solitary core and her independence more than anything, still he is slowly but surely wearing her down.

Tatsu may know a lot about men, know a lot about how to handle them and their crass behavior, know countless ways of how to best them in combat, incapacitate them and the past five years harshly taught her many ways how to murder one, but these were bad men and she knows nothing about dealing with _nice_ men. Good, kindhearted men. Men her age. Men who are into her. Men who are tactfully and endearingly flirting with her. All in present tense.

This, in itself, is something she gets angry, flustered and strangely warm about. In the past, Tatsu has never been one who looked for companionship. She's always climbed up the ranks of wherever she's stationed without much social interaction, she never had a big appetite for making friends, let alone romantic entanglements.

Even when she was in school, ridiculous Western boarding schools with blazer and pleated skirt ensembles that made her sweat bullets in the summer heat, she was always a loner, an outcast apart from the several unmemorable study buddies she had. She never dated anyone, even flings were rare, and even if they occurred they were not long term. At the least she recalled she went out with a boy once to a dance, and then he kissed her (with her permission), and then he groped her (without her permission), and then she punched his face, making a bloody mess of his nose. She'd been sixteen.

It wasn't something she was embarrassed about at all. It's just the way she is. Her grades were great, she wasn't causing any trouble in particular, Alfred (Uncle Alfred precisely for the earlier part of her childhood) was her benefactor throughout her scholarly journey, and her mother was there. She didn't have to live a complicated life. The isolation felt natural, within her intention.

But then she graduated and she knew she didn't want to be a teacher or a doctor or anything else her studies prepared her for. She wanted to fight. She wanted to go to war. She wanted to be strong, unbroken and immortal. She wanted to become her father. The one man she's always longed to meet, to speak to, to share her hidden enthusiasm for martial arts, junk food, video games and whatnot. Her mother thought she desired to become an athlete of the sort when she implied she's more physical than most girls, preferring the dojo over the library and had blanched when her only child had confessed she made plans to join the army. Shizuko Yamashiro, a widow by circumstance, only relented to her daughter when she realized her mind's made up and had given the girl a long talk about being a woman who traveled alone and an equally tight hug after she'd decided on where to go.

Alfred had given her a boost with his colleagues, key persons mostly, getting her network started, but after knowing a few names here and there Tatsu cuts him off too. These uncharted maps ahead of her is a private endeavor. He lets her be. And she is alone once more. There is beauty in her control.

For her first two and a half years, she's worked through every department. She was a land officer for a troop in New Mexico, a U.S. marshal who toured the continent twice, and she's even in the navy at some point. She has also done the desk job (after she's transferred on account of a rather asshole sergeant, who's at the end of the day her commander with the higher power), which involved a lot of red tape that she didn't like, and then at the most opportune moment as she drowned in her boredom and ire the CIA scouted her for the infiltration gig just after a month of the accidental internship.

Tatsu didn't reject the mission, she welcomed it with open arms and senseless euphoria, just as she would any challenge. After all espionage was her forte and she's one of the few competent people who's low profile enough to actually be able to pull through and succeed. Plus, she might be good with guns, but they were never really her style. Katanas, jians, or dao blades are more like it. Definitely the katana though. She is a woman who amusingly remained true to her heritage, as miniscule as the gesture was, these are the weapons she choose.

Little did she know the League harbored an object of unspeakable power used for the most heinous of purposes. They had a jade sword capable of punishing, executing mankind in the cruelest method, ripping their souls, their life force from their screaming human bodies. The ones that suffered the sword's end were left as an empty, irreparable skeleton. Dead. Though infrequent, she still gets nightmares now and then from seeing their prisoners tortured then purged like they were _nothing_, their essence evaporating through their skin then absorbed into an artifact that trapped the ghosts of so many innocents (or the less guilty, because this world isn't black and white, it's a thousand shades of gray).

And as if it wasn't enough to begin with, she has to do it. She has to kill. Kill in their name, under their hand. Blood. Rinse. Repeat. The cycle goes on. They've made a killer out of her. A murderer. And then she doesn't even feel sick anymore. It's her default, her engine to breathe. An elite warrior. Snapping people's spines, slitting people's throats, stabbing people's hearts. It becomes bearable. She becomes jaded. She's not even under duress sometimes. Every bone in her body is no longer protesting to her actions, instead when it's over, and she washed away her sins, knifes cleaned on the sink, she could only feel relief. Being amongst the League, it force grew the primal instinct to survive humans possessed into raging blood lust. And she was blind for a moment.

Then she saw the light. Silver Monkey, one of her mentors among others when she was first initiated, used the sword on one of his own men. For having failed an assassination attempt. For having failed to rob the spirit of another family. For having failed to ruin the lives of a collective number of people and relationships. It hit her hard. Even though she was playing the cards, by being a mole to the CIA, the assignment earning her consent, she was never in control. Her deeds were all guided by the puppet strings of someone else on the throne above. Control is an illusion. Control is absent. _You're never completely safe._

So she ran. Away from it all. And along with her she took the prize every government intelligence in the world has been eagerly hunting for. She stole it like a thief in the night and staged a fire in Tsuruta, faked her own death and escaped with the sword. Why? Because with time she's already learned the governments were bent, imperfect bureaucracies which could twist around its own laws and make an arsenal out of the sword against their personal enemies, dying to fulfill what vendettas they had on their agenda. Governments were people. People were tainted. Selfish. She couldn't let them have it, the sword cannot fall into their grasp. It had to remain out of sight, as if it was gone, just like her. She didn't walk away unscathed, littered and marked with bruises and burns but miraculously every limb had been intact. And she's thankful. It had been one of the most terrifying things she's ever done in her life. Moving on, she lived like a wanderer, a runaway, an outlaw, you name it. Never stayed in one place for too long. Slept in inns and motels. She used one alias after another, even dabbled on some melee forgery for her documents. She felt like a rat hiding in the sewers. She never put her name onto anything. She had to drop off the grid. And she had done it. She could never be discovered.

Money wasn't much of a problem. She had enough to feed and clothe herself, to rent places to rest, even to save up on a measly, dirty but monstrously durable motorcycle. Her mother had trusted her with a good amount of their savings and she also had that early pension funds from her military discharge. The latter felt like a boon really. Tatsu liked downtime and relaxing. But hiding out in the middle of nowhere while partly unemployed for possibly the rest of her life isn't downtime. It's rotting like a fish.

It's in those days where she felt truly miserable. It felt like ages. Trapped in silence. Trapped in stillness. Trapped in motion. It's so quiet, and slow, and fast. She hates it. Finally. She hates it then. Being alone. If only she weren't alone. But she was. And there was no room for attachment. No time. No life. Because she may hold the sword in her hands, she may have stolen it, kept it, but it feels like the other way around. The sword had stole her soul, kept it from her reach, and held her imprisoned even though it had not. But it felt like it did.

When she let it go, when it was taken from her, and stupid, silly, gracious Jason Burr replaced it, half through the courtesy of brooding, paranoid, yet compassionate Bruce Wayne, she felt more alive than ever. She felt like she was _healing_. And as for Batman, forever and beyond, he's her moral compass. It's not perfect or anything, she's still prone to sudden temptation, wanting to deliberately cross that irreversible line between life and death when her temper gets the best of her, but she always heeds his warning, it's an echo in her heart. And when she almost loses it, he's ready, he's there to guide her, teach her. Not to be weak or forgiving, but to be unconquered by hatred. She's not meant to do it alone. He isn't either. They need each other. It's a compromise. She's surprisingly okay with that. Perfection is overrated anyways.


End file.
